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Connor McDavid #97 and Evander Kane #91 of the Edmonton Oilers speak
Following a late-season injury scare after Oilers‘ superstar Connor McDavid missed three games a week from the playoffs, another Edmonton forward revealed on Sunday, April 21 that he’s dealing with a sports hernia.
Evander Kane practiced with the rest of his teammates one day before the Edmonton Oilers get their postseason going on Monday and he’s “not sure” if he will be able to face the Los Angeles Kings in Game 1.
“Not sure,” Kane told reporters following practice on Sunday, April 21. “It’s nice to finally get a little bit of rest. I’ve been dealing with a sports hernia kind of all year.
“It was just getting worse and worse, so I thought it would be good to take a week off for the playoffs and see how I feel.”
Kane missed the final three games of the Oilers regular-season schedule heading into the playoffs, and he revealed on Sunday that was mostly due to lead managing and trying to heal, to some extent, his injury.
Before that, the NHL handed Kane a $5,000 fine, the maximum allowable under the current CBA, as Heavy documented on April 8.
Evander Kane Is Suffering “Athletic Pubalgia”
Although Kane told reporters he wants to play, he couldn’t commit to his availability for Monday’s Game 1 against the Kings to open Edmonton’s first-round playoff series.
Kane is suffering from a sports hernia, which is also known as “athletic pubalgia,” according to the National Library of Medicine. This is a “common yet poorly defined athletic injury characterized by abdominal and groin pain likely from weakening or tearing of the abdominal wall without evidence of a true hernia.”
Translated to hockey, it can result in a diminished ability to move and skate across the ice. Neither Kane nor the Oilers have shared any details about when the symptoms started to affect the player or when the injury happened.
Kane simply said he’s been dealing with it “kind of all year,” and also mentioned he “didn’t feel good” in the game against Vancouver in which he appeared for one last time on April 13.
Even though Kane’s performance this past regular season might have been hampered by the hernia to a certain extent, the forward still found his way to score 24 goals, tied for the 90th-most in the NHL.
Kane has also contributed 20 assists across 77 games played for a total of 44 points in 2023-24.
In his three seasons with the Oilers, Kane has scored 62 goals and dished out 49 assists for 111 points in 161 games played. He’s also contributed 16 goals and 6 assists for 22 points in 27 postseason contests.
Oilers Head Coach Kris Knoblauch Expects Kane to Play
Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch expects Kane to play on Monday and to throw him into a bottom-six role in either the third or fourth line of Edmonton’s offense, where he’s been playing, for the most part, this season.
“He’s been on the ice for a while now and we want to make sure that he’s ready to go,” Knoblauch told reporters on April 21.
Knoblauch shared another interesting take on Kane’s availability and his impact on the lineup if he finally returns after missing the last few games of the regular season. Namely, having to remove someone from the forward corps to make room for him on the wing.
“We’ve got a lot of guys who are playing well,” Knoblauch said. “We’re going to be taking somebody out, which is going to be tough, but when we have Evander and he’s able to play and he’s healthy, we want him in the lineup.”
On Sunday’s practice, Kane lined up in the fourth line along with Sam Carrick and Mattias Janmark, according to Sportsnet’s Bob Stauffer. He was also part of the team’s second power-play unit.
The Oilers are facing the Kings for the third time in as many years after matching up with Los Angeles in 2022 and 2023 and beating them in back-to-back playoffs.
Antonio Losada covers the NHL for Heavy.com. A veteran sports writer based in Spain, Antonio has covered the NBA, NFL and soccer for over 10 years, with bylines at SB Nation, FanSided, Yahoo Sports, FanGraphs, RotoBaller and more. He has also been nominated for multiple FSWA awards, including Fantasy Football Writer of the Year and DFS Writer of the Year. More about Antonio Losada
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